Out of Your Element
by Singer Saraneth
Summary: Yang Lo is a new soldier for the Fire Nation, sent to raid the Southern Water Tribe, but somehow finds himself shipwrecked and alone in the inhospitable South Pole. With a few survival skills and a lot of luck, he might just make it out, but destiny has a funny way of going about things.
1. The Ship

Yang Lo was bored. It had been three months since he was dragged onto this ship, and nothing had happened. He was told that he was "serving his nation," that he was a "brave young man," but this wasn't bravery, it was pure boredom.

The Fire Nation Navy was amazingly dull company; one would think that men with such hot heads and quick words would be able to hold a conversation, yet here Yang sat, alone on the deck, yet surrounded by people. Here or there he would catch word of their assignment from the captains' conversations.

"Just remember to be careful when you land at the South Pole, I hear those savages will stew you up like a hog-monkey if they catch you."

"Disgusting. And they call us the monsters. I'd better return to my post, we only have a day or two before we hit the shores, and I have to make sure we stay on course. Don't want to end up like Wu's fleet."

Yang's ears perked at the last statement. He had heard of Admiral Wu, as most had, but he never knew the whole story. He gave chase after the navigator, though he was careful to choose his words wisely, his low rank becoming increasingly obvious to him.

"Uh, Mr. Captain, sir?"

The Captain looked over his shoulder and grunted his reply.

Yang took this as a sign to keep going and continued.

"I, uh, was wondering what happened to Admiral Wu's fleet, sir?"

The captain turned to face him, a tired gleam in his eye.

"You've heard the stories haven't you, kid?"

The boy's face and temper got slightly heated with the patronising tone, and he couldn't control his lack of formality.

"Yeah, yeah, everyone has, but they're so exaggerated! I once heard the story where a herd of _Sky Bison_ swooped down over them and their fur was what set them off track! I wanna know what _really_ happened."

The Captain regarded the young man for a second, weighing in his mind if the story was worth telling to him or not. Ultimately, he shrugged, turned on a heel and walked off, casually beckoning the lad.

"It's a long story, and I have a post to get to. If you want to hear, then follow close."

Yang's dark eyes lit up, and he ran off after him.

"Admiral Wu was a master navigator, the man could find his way out of Ba Sing Se blindfolded and drunk on Pila Berries," the Captain went on, "so it was a huge shock to all of us when we found out he was lost on the way to the South Pole."

Yang, a little puzzled, scratched his head.

"How did you find out?"

The Captain's eyes slammed shut, and he exhaled a column of steam from his nostrils, exasperated.

"Do you want to talk, or do you want to hear the story?"

Yang's hand went over his mouth, and he nodded furiously, his curiosity nowhere close to satiated.

"Anyway," The Captain began again, "Wu had sent out a messenger hawk telling us he had gone off course, and would try to find his way back. We didn't hear from him for two years, no doubt due to his pride. When we did, it was when he landed back home, his head hung low, the stench of defeat on him and his crew."

"When he gave his report, he said that, when he was almost upon the shores of the South Pole, heavy fogs and rough storms started disturbing the ships, and, when he came out of it all, it seemed as if he were on the other side of the world. He simply blamed his failure on the storms, and tried again, and again, and again."

"Eventually, the man knew when he was beat, and gave up, returning home a failure rather than dying a hero, the fool."

The Captain looked down to the deck of his ship and his eyes narrowed with disgust.

"That's the story, now go train down there, you need to be sharp for the days to come. You a bender, son?"

Yang's eyes lowered to his shuffling feet. _Barely,_ he thought.

"Yes, sir, I am."

The Captain raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"You don't seem very confident in yourself, where's that can-do Fire bender attitude?"

Yang, as if possessed, shot up straight, gave a Fire Nation salute, and repeated the adage that had been drilled into his head from basic training:

"I am a Fire Nation soldier! It is my honour and privilege to uphold the honour of Firelord Ozai, long may he reign!"

The older man gave a hearty laugh, remembering the days when he was a stiff new recruit.

"There you go, boy! Now, go out there and show me some moves!"

Yang spent the remainder of the afternoon training, looking up every once in awhile to notice the Captain's eyes trained on him. He was never any good at Firebending, and barely made it through training with his head, but he knew basic sets, and that was what he practiced.

After 4 hours of shooting what could pass as fire out of his hands, Yang decided to retire to his quarters; with a rather large ship and a relatively small crew, Yang had the luxury of having his own room.

He lit a bar of incense, and sat in meditation for a while, working his body down to sleep after all the energy he had expended. The smoke that entered his lungs soothed his nerves, and, in little time, he could feel himself being pulled away into his dreams.

Sadly, the dreams didn't seem to last long. Yang was quickly and rudely roused from his sleep by the violent rocking of the boat. He stumbled into his uniform and walked out to the deck, where there was a truly terrifying sight.

The ocean was definitely angry at them, dark clouds yelling at them with thunder, and the waves pushing them around like ragdolls made that obvious. Finally, the waves seemed to stop, and, just as everyone was feeling safe, the final blow was delivered to the ship. The biggest wave Yang had ever seen, and it was cresting right on top of them. He could hear the Captain barking orders at his crew, before giving the final bellow to "Get below deck!"

Yang rushed for the door, but, right before he got to safety, the wave hit, and sent him flying to the sea. Luckily, or unluckily, a drifting piece of ice broke his fall, and Yang lay there, out cold, and out in the cold.

He dreamed of the ocean.


	2. The Wasteland

Yang Lo was cold. The Last thing he remembered seeing was the thrashing sea, threatening to swallow him into an early grave, but he was alive. Yang reached up to soothe his pounding head as he surveyed the situation- which was as bleak as they come.

Though his eyesight was perfect, he couldn't see the ship anywhere, not even dead men littered the seascape in front of him.

 _Must have been the currents that swept them away,_ he thought.

 _Or they swept_ me _away,_ he thought, secondarily. He didn't want to think about which possibility was worse.

As the shock of life went away, the bitter pain of the cold came in high tide. It bit at the young man's fingers like the jaws of an angry, giant turtleduck. Yang mustered up what fire he could from his belly and blew it into his hands, warmth blossoming within them, and spilling out onto his face and forearms.

That fire wouldn't keep him warm forever, though, and he knew that. He had to keep moving. He spotted what looked to be an ice cave in the distance; some two hours away, by his estimate. It was the longest walk he had ever taken

The only thing that got Yang's mind off the cold was the severity of his situation. The more he thought about it, the more hopeless it was. He was stranded on a big block of ice, surrounded by frigid waters he wouldn't last ten minutes in, and the only humans for the next thousand miles were those _savages_ in the Water Tribe.

The Water Tribe. He hadn't thought about the possibility that he might be captured by them. Memories of the Captain's conversation rushed back, along with the eerie smell of hog-monkey stew. Yang shuddered at the thought and walked on.

By the time he reached the ice cave, it would have been what Yang could have sworn was supposed to be night time, but the sun was still awake. Truly, the South was a mysterious place.

Conversely, the cave Yang Lo had found for himself was rather mundane; the area wasn't soaked in the blood of defenseless animals, nor littered with the bones of humans come to tread here past, so it was safe enough to sleep in, at least for the night- er, time being.

Far from tired, Yang decided to test out the survival skills he was taught in training. Sadly for him, most of these techniques (and the most useful ones) relied on him having materials, which he had none of. If he was going to live, he would have to search for the crew, or their remains, anything that could be of use.

Yang went out till he saw the ocean again, maybe an hour's walk. He couldn't tell if he was relieved or horrified when he found the remains of the ship, and its crew.

Drowned Fire Nation soldiers littered the water, a gruesome reminder of how alone Yang was. He pulled whom he could out of the sea, and stripped them of whatever clothes wouldn't make them wholly indecent. Yang then gave them an unceremonious burial at sea. Were he powerful enough, he would have cremated them, but his fire was barely enough to keep him alive.

The ship itself was in obvious disrepair-being slammed into an iceberg doesn't do much good for a hull-but the broken piece of metal that drifted towards him would do for a weapon. Yang tore at the clothes of his dead brethren, and tied a strip around what he deemed to be the handle. Like the cave, it was a temporary solution to a rather permanent problem, but it was what he had.

The trek back to the cave wasn't as exhausting as Yang would have hoped- the sunlight still kept him awake, so when he got back, he meditated. Yang was always rather good at clearing his thoughts, it just came naturally to him to shut off his brain, to not think of anything, and to just be at peace. All good things must come to an end, however, and, too soon, the cold was more trouble than meditating was worth.

The clothes that hadn't been commandeered for handle material were used either to fashion Yang a sleeping rag, or a campfire. Between those two, Yang was actually quite warm. Warm enough, at least, to drift off into uncomfortable, but not unbearable, sleep.

Yang dreamt of his family.


	3. The Fauna

**AN: Yeah, I really don't have an excuse for how late this one was, or how short it is. I can only hope you enjoy the read when it comes, and stay along for the ride until it ends. Thank you, really, if you're reading this.**

Yang Lo was hungry. Through all of his survival skills, he had kept himself alive, but there was one aspect of the Arctic climate he had forgotten to consider: he didn't know anything about the animals were all either white or invisible, and, frankly, he couldn't tell the difference; hunting them was a nightmare either way. Not having any food in his stomach was certainly a feeling he wasn't used to- his family had always been well off enough to put food on the table- and it was taking its toll.

He hadn't started hallucinating, but the lack of nutrition was doing strange things to his psyche. A severe pit of depression, followed immediately by a spike of pure joy (which didn't go away until he had had time to strip completely naked and run around the tundra, screaming at the top of his lungs) had left him completely drained of energy.

It had been three days since he had been sentenced to this wasteland, and he had nothing to show for it, other than the ragged breaths that still filled his lungs. He could do nothing from the thoughts that were wiggling their way into his brain:

 _You're going to die out here_

 _Your family won't even know_

 _You'll be food for the Water Tribe in no time_

The energy filled him as the will to live kicked in, along with a small burst of flame he didn't know he had left, which propelled him to his feet.

 _If I'm going to die out here,_ he thought, _let it be known that I tried._

Yang Lo set his jaw and walked out of the cave, into the frozen wasteland. The cold wind whipped at his skin, and dissolved any semblance of comfort he had left, but comfort was a luxury that, at this point, he could no longer afford. He trudged, and trudged, deeper into the South Pole, wherever it would take him. Nothing could be worse than rotting in that cave, alone.

Clouds swirled in the skies above, and Yang could feel something troublesome coming. He bolstered his resolve, and kept trudging. And trudging. It didn't take long for the snow to come down, and when it did, it came down like the tail of a platypus-bear. Fairly soon, the young firebender's vision was greatly reduced, and he could hardly see his own hand in front of his face. His dark skin seemed almost as pale as the snow in this cold, and his hands felt like… well they didn't. Yang Lo couldn't feel anything as he moved, just the robotic trudging of his legs.

His vision was getting blurry, his eyes were glazing over, and, as he fell, face-first, into the snow, there was only the slightest hint of a smile on his face; and, as the world faded to black, one thought rang out through his consciousness.

 _I tried._

Yang Lo dreamed of footsteps.


End file.
